The Limit (Sebastian Vettel)

105. The Fire Inside

"What have you done to my sister?" Joel asked Seb as they waited at the bar for their drinks.  Seb gave a nervous laugh.

"What do you mean?" he replied. 

"She's a different woman from the one that was in Melbourne. And Saudi. And Bahrain.   I don't know what it is, but something has changed."

Seb grinned, pleased that someone else had noticed the change that had come over Lily. 

Sure, she still had a long way to go, but the change was far more than he'd expected. 

It had been over three weeks since she'd come back to him in the graveyard in Melbourne, and in that three weeks she'd turned things around massively, mainly her attitude. 

Gone was bitchy Lily, and back was his sassy, confident woman. She still had some blips when she thought she couldn't do it, but they were rare.

The only time he'd seen her relapse into the scared version of her had been when she'd visited the U.K. to use the simulator, and he totally understood that. Liam was still on the loose. There hadn't even been any sightings of him.   It was as if he'd disappeared completely. 

She hadn't even complained about the cycling he'd made her endure.   In fact, she'd become extremely cooperative, training hard, sticking to her diet and not arguing with him at all.  

In fact, everything was perfect, apart from one thing...they still hadn't made love.

Seb didn't want to push his luck, he was being patient, waiting for her to instigate things but she'd made no move to.

She was still affectionate, there had been lots of kisses and cuddles, but nothing more.

"I guess she's just found that fire inside her.  It never went out, it was just dampened down for a while," he told Joel.

Picking a drink up in each hand, Seb began to walk back to the table where Lily and Amelia were sitting waiting for them. 

"There you go Schatz," he said, handing a glass of orange juice to Lily. 

"Thanks Sunshine," she replied. 

He sat down next to her and took a sip out of his beer.   Joel sat down opposite him, next to Amelia. 

Lily took a sip of her drink and glanced sideways at Seb. She still couldn't quite believe that he'd stuck around after how she'd been behaving. He really was the most amazing man.

She knew that he must be feeling sexually frustrated, they hadn't had sex in three months, but he was being patient, and he never tried to push the issue. She didn't really know why they hadn't had sex, maybe it was just that she felt so stressed that she hadn't felt the urge. To be honest she just needed him holding her right now, reassuring her that everything would be alright.

"So are you feeling confident?" Joel asked her. She shrugged, wrinkling her nose a little as she did so.

"I don't know. I mean, I feel a lot better than I did going into the first three race weekends, but I don't know how I'll be in the race itself."

She was more worried about it than she had actually let on to anyone. What if she didn't get a good result? Even through no fault of her own? Seb had said Lawrence wanted her to do well in both Baku and Miami. If she didn't do well here, was that it?

"Hey guys," came the familiar voice of Daniel Ricciardo. Lily glanced up at the Australian and smiled. It was always good to see him.

"Hey Daniel," Seb said. The others greeted him too.